Triumph! Smooth start for 'Big Bang' test

A flawless start to the "Big Bang" experiment that will re-enact the first moments of the universe was hailed as a triumph by British scientists involved in the project today.

At 9.30am the start-up team in Geneva announced they had achieved "first beam" at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complex scientific instrument ever built.

Protons - one of the building blocks of matter - were spun round the giant particle accelerator's 27 kilometre-long circular beam tunnel at just a fraction under the speed of light.

Getting the beam to circulate all the way round the 100 metre-deep underground tunnel was originally expected to take most of the day.

In fact the scientists also managed to send a beam in the opposite direction by about 2pm BST.

Later the particles will be made to smash into each other at energy levels up to seven times higher than any seen before.